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Showing posts from August, 2024

Astronauts On The Dance Floor: Space Disco & Electro Pop (Mixcloud Exclusive)

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Unsplash Enjoy the spacey sounds from the Dr. Who era! 😊 The other day I got inspired when I saw the movie Fly Me To The Moon about the first manned space flight with Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in the leading roles. Space disco is the fusion of disco music with futuristic themes, sounds and visuals. This kind of music became popular in the late 1970s. It was heavily influenced by sci-fi movies and series like Star Wars and Star Trek and the growing popularity of electronic instruments. The main idea behind this subgenre was a musical or lyrical exploration of the wonders of outer space, and many bands often included robotic shapes, laser illumination and computer screens sequences in their live performances. The artists themselves often dressed in a way inspired by glam rock and somewhat futuristic fashion. They looked like astronauts on stage. The lyrics sometimes had some sexual innuendo too. Italo disco used quite a few elements from seventies space disco the next dec...

Chillout In A Warm Latin Breeze

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Ahmet Cotur Enjoy familiar songs in a comfortable Latin jacket. Warm sounds for warm days! 😊 One of the first bands that recreated classic songs in a Latin arrangement was Nouvelle Vague. Their name, "new wave" in French, referred to the new wave music that they covered and to the French New Wave cinema movement of the 1960s. They often reworked songs in a “bossa nova” style, which means "new wave" in Portuguese. Explaining how the project came about, band member Olivier Libaux later told the BBC: "Marc Collin and I were both musicians and producers in the French music industry when, in 2003, Marc called me with this very strange idea of covering Love Will Tear Us Apart in a bossa nova version. I thought this idea was absolutely crazy but very exciting. So we decided to get into the studio and try it out as soon as possible." Olivier Libaux passed away in 2021. Next up is a Mixcloud Exclusive for subscribers, followed by part 7 of Sunny Breeze From The ...

Hot Sounds From 1979: Yacht Rock, Soul & Billboard Hits

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Pexels Enjoy the songs that were hits, or at least should have been hits, in Europe and the US during the warm summer of 1979! The opening track by Bell & James is from the new compilation Thom Bell - Didn't I Blow Your Mind? The Sound Of Philadelphia Soul 1969 - 1983 , out on Ace Records. Both LeRoy Bell and Casey James had played in Special Blend before beginning to write songs together. At some point Bell's uncle Thom Bell got them signed to Gamble & Huff as songwriters for their Philadelphia International label. Through the years the duo composed for Elton John, MFSB, The O'Jays, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Freda Payne, Phyllis Hyman, The Three Degrees, and others. Eventually A&M Records took notice and signed them to a full album deal in 1978. Nobody Knows It is from their second album, Only Make Believe . Dance Awa y by Roxy Music was originally written by Bryan Ferry for his 1977 solo album In Your Mind , but did not make the final track listing. It...

Sunday Drive: AOR, West Coast Pop & Classic Rock

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Wat is more fun than driving on a Sunday? Enjoy the ride! 😊 The singer of Dutch band Road was Nick MacKenzie (Nick van den Broeke). After leaving the group to pursue a solo career in the early 1970s, he scored a large number of hits in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, including One Is One , Juanita and Peaches On A Tree . He disappeared from view the next decade after his last hit single ( Hello Good Morning ) in 1980, but he suddenly came back into the news in 2015. He had been arrested for participating in a drug gang. He would later say that he had spent tons of money on women, gambling and drugs, because of his success at a very young age. Marty Balin who passed away a few years ago, is best known for his contributions to the pioneering San Francisco based, psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane in the 1960s. He also enjoyed quite a successful solo career, scoring a Billboard Top Ten hit with Hearts in 1981. The track by San Diego based Richard Bown can be found on the ...

Smooth Sailing: Summer Synth- & Sophisti Pop

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Unsplash It’s time to put eighties subgenre sophisti-pop in the limelight again, just like Taylor Swift did when she mentioned The Blue Nile in her song Guilty As Sin recently. Enjoy! “Some of the sound’s hallmarks are jazzy chord changes, air-tight drums, splashy synth melodies, high-sheen production, and a decidedly non-rockist embrace of everything from slow-jam R&B to Brazilian music and ‘50s film scores.” (Jim Allen/Discogs) One of the tracks is from The Dream Academy. The self-titled debut album from the art-school trio led by lead singer/guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes was produced by him and David Gilmour (Pink Floyd). The band used lush string arrangements and multi-layered vocals to create a unique, sixties style sound. It worked to best effect on their hit Life In A Northern Town with its nostalgic lyrics and references to Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and The Walker Brothers ( Make It Easy On Yourself ). The song was written as an elegy to British folk singer Nick Drake, wh...

Sunshine Radio: Greetings From The West Coast

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Unsplash There is no doubt that the best musicians lived on the West Coast in the 1970s. Even Motown moved from Detroit to L.A. for a better creative climate. So no wonder that the West Coast sound was flourishing those days! The Keane Brothers were a duo of teen brothers from L.A. who released four albums and briefly hosted a television variety show on CBS. DJ Supermarkt wants You’re Running Away , produced by David Foster and Lamont Dozier, from their album Taking Off , on one of his future Too Slow To Disco compilations. The problem is that he has not been able to get it licensed yet. The rights are not clear, according to Universal, the owner of ABC Records. DJ Supermarkt will perform in my home town Groningen on the 13th of September, by the way. He will be one of the acts during the Rooftop Sessions at Forum Groningen. Although he kept on recording for more than 40 years, Dutch singer Albert West was most successful early in his career, around the mid-seventies. He had a string...